1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image pickup apparatus using a microlens array.
2. Description of the Related Art
Various image pickup apparatuses have been proposed and developed. Moreover, image pickup apparatuses that are designed to perform predetermined image processing on picked-up image data obtained by picking up an image and output the processed picked-up image data have been proposed.
For example, an image pickup apparatus using a method called “Light Field Photography” is proposed in PCT Japanese Translation Patent Publication No. 06/039486 and “Light Field Photography with a Hand-Held Plenoptic Camera” (Ren.Ng et al., Stanford Tech Report CTSR 2005-02). This image pickup apparatus includes an image pickup lens, which is a main lens for picking up an image of a shooting subject, an aperture diaphragm, a microlens array in which a plurality of microlenses are arranged, a photoreceptor, and an image processing unit. The picked-up image data obtained from the photoreceptor includes information regarding the intensity distribution of light received by a reception surface of the photoreceptor and also information regarding directions in which light rays propagate. The image processing unit is designed to be able to reconstruct an image obtained for an arbitrary field of view or for an arbitrary focus or a 3-D image.
Moreover, in a case in which a color image is obtained using the image pickup apparatus, in general, a color filter is added onto an image pickup element. As such a color filter, for example, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,971,065, a Bayer color filter is often used in which the three primary colors, red (R), green (G), and blue (B), are arranged in a mosaic pattern in the ratio of R:G:B=1:2:1.